Online Computer Terms Dictionary - P

proxy server

<programming, World-Wide Web> A process providing a cache of items
available on other servers which are presumably slower or more expensive to
access.

This term is used particularly for a World-Wide Web server which accepts URLs
with a special prefix. When it receives a request for such a URL, it strips off
the prefix and looks for the resulting URL in its local cache. If found, it
returns the document immediately, otherwise it fetches it from the remote
server, saves a copy in the cache and returns it to the requester. The cache
will usually have an expiry algorithm which flushes documents according to their
age, size, and access history.